Bob Jordan, Southwest’s chief executive, said the carrier expects to roll out the new seating and boarding options sometime in 2025. He said one thing won’t change: The carrier has no immediate plans to implement bag fees.
Southwest has long prided itself on what sets it apart from other players, but Jordan said it must evolve to meet shifting demand. He emphasized that the decision was “not made lightly” but is the product of extensive consumer surveying and research.
“The answer is clear: There is more demand for Southwest Airlines with an assigned seating model,” he said.
The move quickly drew negative reaction from die-hard Southwest fans who say the airline is jeopardizing its identity, and from analysts who see the airline abandoning some of the practices that helped cement its reputation as a maverick among carriers.
Saty Reddy, a lawyer who lives in the Bay Area and flies Southwest frequently with his family, said the shift marks “the end of the people’s airline.”
Benét J. Wilson, a veteran aviation journalist and Southwest superfan who lives in Baltimore, said she woke up to “a ton of texts and messages from friends giving me this news.” The new policies will inevitably make Southwest feel different — but also more like its competitors, she said.
“It’s like another airline, any old plain airline,” Wilson said. “Southwest has swag and personality, bon vivant. Part of that was the open seating. Now I just feel like it will kind of change how the airline feels to me.”
Southwest fan Grant Goodman, 24, sent a message to a reporter Thursday morning saying he felt betrayed. The Atlanta-based actor described himself as “a dedicated front row, middle seat enthusiast.”
“My favorite endurance hobby was checking in at the 24-hour mark,” he said in an interview. “The button — I got it down.”
Goodman said he appreciated how passengers could book a flight 48 hours before departure, check in 24 hours in advance and still have a shot at a seat upfront.
“It was basically like a democracy,” he said.
Kerry Tan, a professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland, said Southwest has built a loyal following among those who embraced the quirky approach to travel that set it apart from its competitors.
“Southwest has made its reputation and has been successful at being a maverick,” he said. “Now it’s just following the pack.”
While the carrier has portrayed the changes as a win for its customers, Tan has his doubts.
“It’s hard for me to see this as a win for passengers, especially long time loyal Southwest Airline passengers,” he said. “The only reason to do this is to appease shareholders. This is not a win for passengers — this is a win for shareholders.”
Southwest’s stock price rose more than 5 percent Thursday.
The company acknowledged that changing the seating policy is a fundamental shift for the airline, which boasts that its goal was to “democratize the sky” with low-cost travel when it began offering service in 1971 connecting three Texas cities — Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. As Southwest lore goes, the original business plan for the upstart carrier was sketched out on a cocktail napkin by Herb Kelleher, the company’s late founder, whose office is still preserved at its Dallas headquarters.
Kelleher was determined to build an airline with a unique culture that valued employees who had a sense of humor and weren’t afraid to have fun. Southwest flight attendants are known for their corny jokes and oddball stunts like offering prizes to passengers with holes in their socks. In the early days, the carrier’s focus on smaller, less-trafficked airports enabled it to keep costs and fares low.
There were other benefits. Researchers found that when Southwest entered a market, competitors would lower their fares, a phenomenon they described as the “Southwest effect.”
Despite the carrier’s storied history, it has sometimes stumbled. In December 2022, Southwest suffered a major meltdown after freezing weather hit much of the country shortly before Christmas. While other airlines were able to bounce back, Southwest struggled for more than a week to restore its operations.
On Tuesday, the Federal Aviation Administration announced it would conduct a special review of Southwest’s flight operations and flight training after several incidents involving the carrier’s jets. Earlier this month, a Southwest flight flew as low as 150 feet over water as it prepared to land at Tampa’s airport. In June, a low-altitude alert was triggered as a Southwest flight was preparing to land at Oklahoma City’s airport.
Jordan said Thursday that the carrier expects to have more details in September on its seating changes, including how they might impact Southwest’s A-List members, who already receive perks such as special check-in lines and priority boarding.
Southwest said its research showed that 80 percent of its customers and 86 percent of “potential” customers prefer an assigned seat. Jordan said data also showed that travelers cited the open-seating policy as the chief reason they stop flying on Southwest or choose to book with another airline. Ending the scrum of open seating will ease concerns among families, Jordan said.
“In the new world of assigned seating, you would have the assurance that you’d be able to sit together,” he said. “A lot of these changes are about taking the stress out of the boarding and seating process.”
Ryan Fisher, a digital marketing analyst and frequent Southwest flier based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said Southwest’s seating changes are not a surprise but still disappointing.
“If people are willing to pay up for that seat guarantee, I get it,” Fisher said in a direct message on X. “I’m just not that person … so this news overall is disappointing for a Southwest loyalist like myself.”
Southwest fan Goodman anticipates that the airline’s changes will result in higher prices for passengers. He expects Southwest to continue offering free checked bags, a differentiating perk the company’s leadership has promised to keep. But he mourned the loss of the open-seating policy.
“It was the commoner’s airline,” he said. “That feeling, I think, has kind of fallen a little bit.”
Edward Russell contributed to this report.
correction
A previous version of this article misattributed “the end of the people’s airline” to Ryan Fisher. The article has been corrected.
